*
FRIDAY
Got to let off a little steam of my own today – and boy, that's been a long time coming. I hadn't realised how much I needed it – after weeks of nothing more aggressive than working out in the gym or kicking a few simulated butts in the dojo – oh, and shooting hoops with Brennan - I'd almost forgotten the rush I get from going head to head with a real flesh and blood opponent and taking him out.
Not that we don't take our one on one seriously. At least, Brennan does. It never ceases to amaze me that even with his height advantage he feels the need to cheat and use his powers to win. He should know by now, though, that brawn doesn't always guarantee victory over brains – and that our mutant abilities shouldn't be the only weapons in our armouries.
Which isn't to say they don't come in handy, especially when a telekinetic is hurling baseballs at you. Just a bit of massing, though, and only when the alternative would be serious damage. For some reason I'm finding myself preferring to finish these things without resorting to density changes, just using the martial arts skills I learnt with my Dad when I was a kid – back when my Dad was someone I was proud to be with, to learn from – and which I've carried on building up, enhancing. It seems to mean more that way.
But in the end it was my Little League coaches I had to thank for bringing me out on top this time – nothing quite so satisfying as catching a curveball mid-bat and hearing the wood sing as the ball screams away exactly where you intended it to go. It was a bit frightening, though, how much I meant it. It could have drilled straight through his head instead of just knocking him down and I wouldn't have cared. I was so up for a fight, so ready to take out this frustration that I can't explain to anyone on the first stranger that got in my way. Maybe some of Shal's feral stuff is rubbing off on me...
Or maybe my new powers have some hidden factors that I haven't discovered yet.
I had this weird conversation with Brennan while we were trying to decipher the markings on the cloth Ashlocke's boys left behind when they ran. I was just thinking, kind of out loud, about what it must be like to have all that power and for it still not to be enough. Not enough to make you happy. Not enough to save you. I'm not in any way excusing what Ashlocke's become – I can't and won't do that. But I guess I can sort of see how it could happen. And although Brennan got me all wrong when he accused me of saying that we're going to end up like that some day too, I'd be lying if I said the thought hadn't crossed my mind.
As I'm sure it has his, and the others too. The fear that this spurt isn't it, that it's just another phase in our mutancies, and that there'll be another and another until it drives us insane like it's done to Ashlocke. Until it kills us...
He's dying. Emma got a reading off the girl we brought back, Valerie, just as he induced her to die rather than tell us anything that might help us. It makes me sick that he can have that amount of control over his people, that he rules them with the fear of what he can and will do to them if they fail him. And if he's dying himself, there's no reason on this earth why he won't feel totally justified in just taking them all with him.
I wonder if they know.
And all this just makes Adam even more determined to do what he thinks is the right thing, particularly now we're getting a better idea of what Ashlocke wanted with that urn and the crystal. We all agree that we have to stop him – it's just the way we do it that the rest of us aren't so sure about.
*
FRIDAY
Got to let off a little steam of my own today – and boy, that's been a long time coming. I hadn't realised how much I needed it – after weeks of nothing more aggressive than working out in the gym or kicking a few simulated butts in the dojo – oh, and shooting hoops with Brennan - I'd almost forgotten the rush I get from going head to head with a real flesh and blood opponent and taking him out.
Not that we don't take our one on one seriously. At least, Brennan does. It never ceases to amaze me that even with his height advantage he feels the need to cheat and use his powers to win. He should know by now, though, that brawn doesn't always guarantee victory over brains – and that our mutant abilities shouldn't be the only weapons in our armouries.
Which isn't to say they don't come in handy, especially when a telekinetic is hurling baseballs at you. Just a bit of massing, though, and only when the alternative would be serious damage. For some reason I'm finding myself preferring to finish these things without resorting to density changes, just using the martial arts skills I learnt with my Dad when I was a kid – back when my Dad was someone I was proud to be with, to learn from – and which I've carried on building up, enhancing. It seems to mean more that way.
But in the end it was my Little League coaches I had to thank for bringing me out on top this time – nothing quite so satisfying as catching a curveball mid-bat and hearing the wood sing as the ball screams away exactly where you intended it to go. It was a bit frightening, though, how much I meant it. It could have drilled straight through his head instead of just knocking him down and I wouldn't have cared. I was so up for a fight, so ready to take out this frustration that I can't explain to anyone on the first stranger that got in my way. Maybe some of Shal's feral stuff is rubbing off on me...
Or maybe my new powers have some hidden factors that I haven't discovered yet.
I had this weird conversation with Brennan while we were trying to decipher the markings on the cloth Ashlocke's boys left behind when they ran. I was just thinking, kind of out loud, about what it must be like to have all that power and for it still not to be enough. Not enough to make you happy. Not enough to save you. I'm not in any way excusing what Ashlocke's become – I can't and won't do that. But I guess I can sort of see how it could happen. And although Brennan got me all wrong when he accused me of saying that we're going to end up like that some day too, I'd be lying if I said the thought hadn't crossed my mind.
As I'm sure it has his, and the others too. The fear that this spurt isn't it, that it's just another phase in our mutancies, and that there'll be another and another until it drives us insane like it's done to Ashlocke. Until it kills us...
He's dying. Emma got a reading off the girl we brought back, Valerie, just as he induced her to die rather than tell us anything that might help us. It makes me sick that he can have that amount of control over his people, that he rules them with the fear of what he can and will do to them if they fail him. And if he's dying himself, there's no reason on this earth why he won't feel totally justified in just taking them all with him.
I wonder if they know.
And all this just makes Adam even more determined to do what he thinks is the right thing, particularly now we're getting a better idea of what Ashlocke wanted with that urn and the crystal. We all agree that we have to stop him – it's just the way we do it that the rest of us aren't so sure about.
*